“A few months after I’d moved in I woke early one morning to find a dark-haired, very good-looking young man lying next to me," she said.

"He was fully clothed – in a loose white shirt, a neck scarf and old-fashioned breeches. He had a kind of shimmer to him as if he was behind a fluttering voile curtain. I told myself I was dreaming and rolled away from him.

"As I faced the wall I slowly realised I wasn’t asleep and, suddenly, I was frozen with fear. I felt a hand on my waist but the touch was strange – light and cool.”

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She said she knew instinctively that he was a ghost and that she recognised him as a man in the painting.

“We started to make love. He was very gentle and stroked my body tenderly.

Sian Jameson has recounted her paranormal experience

"During the lovemaking, I sensed all kinds of things about him – his name (Robert) and when he lived (over 100 years ago).

"We didn’t speak – it was as if he was communicating with me telepathically. His body was soft and light. Even when he moved on top of me, pressing down, he felt almost weightless. It was very strange but the sex was amazing.

“I was totally perplexed about what had happened. In fact, I started to wonder whether it had happened at all. In the end, I told myself it was just a very vivid dream and put it to the back of my mind.”

She said they made love again in the morning, then he got dressed and left the room.

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What the experts say

Psychotherapist Tina Radziszewicz says: “Although the experience of making love with a ghost felt very real to Sian, the ‘spectre sex’ always happened either early in the morning or late at night, while she was just waking up or just nodding off.

"It’s well known that particular types of hallucination occur during the transition from wakefulness to sleep (hypnogogic hallucinations) or from sleep to wakefulness (hypnopompic ones).

"Stress, anxiety, depression and trauma can make people more prone to this form of hallucination."

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But parapsychologists believe that some ghosts do have the power to get quite physical. Ghost-hunter and author of the book Ghost Sex: The Violation, G.L. Davies, says: “No-one knows what motivates ghosts to have sex with the living. Are we like lab rats to them?

"One thing’s for sure though, the people who experience it are certainly not dreaming. I spoke to many people – men and women – for my book and some of their stories are pretty shocking.

"They’re all convinced the sex actually happened and wasn’t imagined. And who am I to contradict them?”